And each particular hair to stand an-end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.”
There are two schools of Buddhism, viz., the Southern
and the Northern: to the former belong Ceylon, Siam
and Burma, while in the latter are included all the
remaining countries which profess Buddhism, such as
China, Japan, Tibet, &c. The Southern school admits
that only a very small number of suffering humanity
can attain to Nirvana, whereas the Northern throws
the acquisition of this blessed state of salvation open to
all mankind.
While renouncing the world as unreal and unsatisfying,
men still made Buddha into a god, for did he not
alone know the way of salvation, and had he not
taught them by doctrine and example ? So Buddha
became a god all-powerful, all-good, all-knowing,
possessed of every virtue, an essence permeating the
whole universe, and every phase of his attributes was
made into a separate godhead, not different from all
the others, but simply calling attention to that particular
quality in a marked way. Thus there is the
Buddha of Boundless Light (Amitabha), of Eternal
Life (Amitayus), the Everlasting, the Indestructible,
the Great Physician, &c.; in fact, there are a thousand
Buddhas. Thus was opened the gates of pantheism.
To these were added Bodhisats, or beings who are
about to become Buddhas, i.e., gods or human saints
so good and holy that between them and Nirvana there
lies only one step, one rebirth, and who were regarded
finally as the Buddha himself, who having attained
Nirvana is God omnipotent. These were sometimes
regarded as emanations from the all-holy Buddha,
i.e., as his sons, and the next step, of course brought in
by the Tantrik cult, introduced the female energy, and
assigned wives to the gods.
Thus there are the “ Three Lords ” of Tibetan Buddhism,
who are the “ Defenders of the Faith,” a triad
Jugs for filling water into bowls which stand on the altars in front of the
idols
Bells with thunderbolt handles (dorje) used by lamas in the temples
Sauce-pan for pouring melted butter into bowls in which lights bum on the
altars
Table with folding flaps
Trumpets made of human thigh-bones used by lamas in their rites : it has
been said that those of criminals are preferred, but those in the picture belonged
to holy men, and similarly the human skulls represented elsewhere
resembling Brahma, Shiva and \ ishnu of Hinduism
(Trimurti).*
(1) The God of Wisdom (Manjusri), a kind of Apollo,
who sits with a sword in his right hand to cut all Gordian
knots and the book of knowledge in his left. We found
large numbers of clay images of this god in the caves,
cast there by devotees, a fact clearly indicating his
popularity.
* Cj. Waddell’s “ Buddhism of Tibet,” p. 355.
Q